"Lefts" to scab on NALGO? Clampdown on student unions

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Services - Paula Moore - has come out with the kind of bleeding-heart "our first duty is to the children" propaganda that would be expected from a Tory council.

It echoes the line taken by the Tory covernment in the healtt Torker mike, in the loch local councillors were active in supporting.

Offered nothing

Paula Moore has said that the council offered to negotiate locally provided that NALGO calls off their action in Southwark.

But she should know that the local branch cannot itself call off action.

Furthermore the council has so far offered NAIGO nothing, except threats; and have said that any local agreement must be "funded from internal resources" (i.e. cost nothing).

It is the impression of officers of Southwark NALGO that leading councillors want to take on NALGO in order to smash the union, so that the way would be open to impose cuts when the effects of the Tories' ratecapping legislation become felt.

This impression is reinforced by the fact that the Council has rushed through a local regrading JUST AS student unions will be booking coaches for the big CND demonstration on October 22, the Attorney General has announced a new clampdown on student union expenditure.

Student unions have charity status, meaning that their money can only be spent within prescribed limits. But since there is no list of 'illegal' expenditure, payments have been in effect legal unless proven otherwise.

Under the law, donations cannot be made to campaigns or disputes unless there is a return. Thus £100 could not be given to, say, the El Salvador Solidarity Campaign, but an affiliation could be made since the affiliates receive mailings in return.

The test is whether the money spent furthers the cultural, economic or educational interests of students (and, according to some student union rules, their own students). But what lies within these bounds is obviously a political decision.

Now the Attorney General has written to college authorities reminding them that 'their' student unions must not make improper payments, and recommending that colleges should cut the union's money if thert 1s evidence that money has been illegally spent.

There is even the suggestion that union officers responsible may be personally liable to repay amounts wrongly disbursed.

But while all this is clearly reactionary, a dilemma remains on the question of CND coaches. Is organising and paying for coaches simply providing a service for a student union's own students - or does it amount to a donation to CND? And can students' cultural interests be promoted irrespective of the danger of nuclear annihilation?